While the eclipse will only be partially visible in Louisville, it can be experienced in its totality in a band about 100 miles wide from Mexico to Newfoundland, including most of southern Indiana like Paoli and Seymour, less than an hour away.��

“This will be so close to us in Louisville,” said Gerard Williger, professor of physics and astronomy, who is teaching the class. “Those who experience a total solar eclipse will remember it forever. It’s completely different from a partial eclipse: The temperature drops, birds go quiet, the wind dies down and a few bright stars and planets become visible.”

is entirely online and worth one college credit. The next time a total solar eclipse will occur this close to Louisville will be on Oct. 17, 2153.

“The course is unusual in that it does not fulfill a degree requirement, but rather is a free elective, like a golf or tennis class,” Williger said. “The goal is to inform people about this once-in-a-lifetime eclipse, and is not meant to take much time.”

“Special Topics: The Great North American Eclipse of 2024,” begins Jan. 8, 2024. The eclipse will be April 8, and the final class April 15. Lectures will be recorded for flexible viewing.

Visit the  for information on pricing and how to enroll. UofL employees may use their tuition remission benefit for the class.

Topics include the sun and the solar system; eclipses in art, literature, folklore, film, music and television; the celestial sphere and exoplanets.

Cities outside the , like Louisville, will experience a partial solar eclipse and see a crescent-shaped sun.��

�ճ���� is gearing up for crowds for the event and is offering five free viewing sites for eclipse-watchers. A festival is planned for the day before.�������Ի���, also within driving distance from Louisville, are planning for eclipse tourists.

For further information, contact Williger at gwilliger@louisville.edu or (502) 852-0821.��

Gerard Williger and two colleagues at the at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), in Preston, England, presented the research last month at a virtual meeting of the American Astronomical Society.��

Williger, a fellow at the institute, is a co-advisor with UCLan’s Roger Clowes to UCLan PhD student Alexia Lopez. They are investigating Lopez’s discovery of an arc of galaxies in distant space they have named the Giant Arc.��

Spanning 3.3 billion light years, the Giant Arc might be an indicator that scientists need to expand the size of what is considered a representative segment of all of space in the . This guiding principle holds that one portion of the cosmos is effectively the same as the rest, so findings from that segment apply to all of space.

“The Cosmological Principle tells us one part of the universe is pretty much the same as another part of the universe,” Williger said. “The Giant Arc is three times bigger than anything we’ve seen before. So maybe that principle has to have its size upgraded. How big is big enough to say this is an average piece of the universe?”

An published June 10 in Science News quoted Lopez as saying the discovery, if true, adds to a growing body of similar research that “would overturn cosmology as we know it.”

The arc was discovered by analyzing data from the .��

Fred Espenak will speak at 6:30 p.m. about “The Great American Total Solar Eclipse of 2017” in Comstock Hall, School of Music. The free, is the 2016 Bullitt lecture in astronomy. The annual lecture and reception afterward are intended for the general public.

Espenak, who has witnessed 26 total solar eclipses, will discuss expectations for the Aug. 21 total eclipse, which will be visible from the contiguous United States for the first time since 1979. The maximum viewpoint for the totality of the moon covering the sun will be near Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Viewers can expect a daytime twilight effect and a glimpse of the sun’s corona.

The scientist retired from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and now lives in Portal, Arizona, where he operates the Bifrost Astronomical Observatory and runs three eclipse-related websites. His numerous books include “Eclipse Bulletin: Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 August 21,” “Totality: Eclipses of the Sun” and “Get Eclipsed: The Complete Guide to the American Eclipses.” The American Astronomical Union named an asteroid after him in 2003.��

UofL’s physics and astronomy department and the Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium present the annual Bullitt lectures through an endowment established by the family of former U.S. Solicitor General William Marshall Bullitt.